# Can a POTUS be removed early without taking criminal action? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [April 28, 2025, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-potus-be-removed-early-without-taking-criminal-action/1017582 "2025-04-28T00:17:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2025, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-potus-be-removed-early-without-taking-criminal-action/1017582/41 "2025-05-03T12:33:27Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > I’m not sure what happens in the USA if there is no budget passed to authorize spending. There’s no spending until the crisis is resolved (even the “essential” government workers don’t get paid during this time; they just get back pay afterwards). Most often, the resolution isn’t in the form of a proper budget, but just a “continuing resolution”, which maintains all spending at the previous level for a short, specified timespan, thereby kicking the can down the road to another crisis. ---
**Author:** ![ThisSpaceForRent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisspaceforrent/32/345_2.png) [@ThisSpaceForRent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisSpaceForRent)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2025, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-potus-be-removed-early-without-taking-criminal-action/1017582/42 "2025-05-04T22:12:31Z")
I sure fucking hope so…given our current POTUS. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-potus-be-removed-early-without-taking-criminal-action/1017582/43 "2025-05-05T03:59:05Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > When Clark defeated Trudeau in 1979 and then was defeated (on the budget vote) so Pierre Trudeau returned, it was around 2 years from one budget to the other. I don’t think that’s correct. First, it’s important to distinguish between the appropriation acts and the budget. The appropriation acts are the legal authority for the government to pay its bills. They are part of the budget process, but the budget is broader than that. The budget is a planning document: how the government plans to spend its money, whether it will bring in new taxes, lower taxes, new spending, cut spending, and so on. The appropriation acts are the statutes that authorise money to be spent out of the public treasury, things like pensions, EI, salaries for public servants, grants to provinces, and so on. There does not appear to have been any break in the appropriation acts from 1978 to 1980: - the Trudeau government passed three appropriation acts in 1978 “for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1979”. The last of those was the _Appropriation Act, 1978-79_, SC 1978, c 6. - After the 1979 election, the Clark government passed an appropriation act and also a supplementary borrowing act, to cover government expenditures up to the end of the 1980 fiscal year ending March 31, 1980: _Appropriation Act No 1, 1979-80_, SC 1979, c 2; _Borrowing Authority Act, 1979-80_, SC 1979, c 3. That meant the federal government had statutory authority for its expenditures during that period. - When Trudeau was returned to office in early 1980, his government passed a series of appropriation acts to cover the government’s spending authority for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 1981, starting with the _Appropriation Act, No 1, 1980-81_, SC 1980, c 3. That was the statutory authority to cover spending for 1979 and 1980, up to March 31, 1981. There may have been some gaps covered by special warrants as a result of the election, but by and large, looks like there was statutory authority to cover the federal government’s spending for those two years. Also, although I don’t have any cites, I doubt that there was a two year gap between the budgets. The normal pattern for an election year is that the government introduces its budget in the spring, stuffed full of goodies, and then the government campaigns on that. I assume that happened in the spring of 1979, with Trudeau releasing a budget for 1979-1980. Clark introduced a budget in the fall of 1979, and lost the budget vote, triggering the election. Trudeau got elected again in February of 1980. In the normal course of the federal fiscal year, his government would have introduced a budget in the spring of 1980, just a year after the 1979 Liberal pre-election budget. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-potus-be-removed-early-without-taking-criminal-action/1017582/44 "2025-05-05T04:20:11Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > Or, in the case of Trump, does the world have to wait until 2028, even if he does nothing criminal or anti-constitutional? It is worth noting that impeaching a president is a political process and not a criminal one. Congress can remove the president for wearing a tan suit if they want. As a practical matter they want to be able to point to some malfeasance or terrible judgment but there is nothing stopping congress from removing the president for any reason at all or even no reason whatsoever. This assumes the political will to do so is there and that is not an easy thing to achieve at all. Yes, it is supposed to be for “high crimes and misdemeanors” but that is whatever congress says it is. Kinda like Trump claiming emergency powers because we are being “invaded” along our southern border. We aren’t…obviously. But it is whatever he says it is. Same thing here. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-potus-be-removed-early-without-taking-criminal-action/1017582/45 "2025-05-05T07:06:19Z")
According to Wikipedia - > The Canadian federal budget for fiscal year 1979–80 was presented by Minister of Finance Jean Chrétien in the House of Commons of on 16 November 1978. Then Clark’s budget in 1979 was defeated. > The **Canadian federal budget** for fiscal year 1980–81 was presented by [Minister of Finance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_of_Finance_(Canada)) [Allan MacEachen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_MacEachen) in the [House of Commons of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_Canada) on 28 October 1980. It was the first budget presented after the Liberals won a majority in the [1980 Canadian federal election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Canadian_federal_election). So basically as I remember in the news of the time - 2 years. Trudeau held on as long as he could, just under the 5 year minimum. There was speculation he would use the letter of the law - parliament could only sit for 5 years, but technically (theoretically) the election could still wait a while after that. But, he did what was required by tradition and law. But as you say, the appropriations acts are probably what made spending legal. And it seems, they don’t really generate any major news or controversies. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2025, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-potus-be-removed-early-without-taking-criminal-action/1017582/46 "2025-06-01T10:41:20Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > The Senate is currently split 53 seats Republican, 45 seats Democrat, and 2 seats Independent. The chances of the Democrats gaining 21 Senate seats in any election is extremely unlikely. To be clear, the two Independents caucus with the Democrats, so they would need 19 additional seats, not 21. Obviously still practically impossible, though. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2025, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-potus-be-removed-early-without-taking-criminal-action/1017582/47 "2025-06-01T14:05:25Z")
Wouldn’t they need 20 more seats? A two-thirds vote of the Senate requires 67 votes, not 66 (since 66 is less than two-thirds.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-potus-be-removed-early-without-taking-criminal-action/1017582.md?page=2)